V. I. Lenin

Interview Given to Michael Farbman,

ObserverandManchester GuardianCorrespondent

Written:27 October 1922First Published:Pravda No.254, November 10, 1922; Published according to a typewritten copy corrected by Lenin; published inObserverandManchester GuardianalsoSource:Lenin’sCollected Works, 2nd English Edition, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1965,Volume 33, pages 383-389Translated:David Skvirsky and George HannaTranscription\HTML Markup:David Walters&R. CymbalaCopyleft:V. I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marx.org) 2002. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of theGNU Free Documentation License

1. Question.The anti-Russian press describes
    Herriot’s recep-tion in Moscow and the Franco-Russian negotiations as
    a definite change in Soviet Russia’s foreign policy.

Is that true? Is it true that Russia regards British
    policy in the Middle East as a challenge and is ready to conclude an
    agreement with France directed against Britain?

Answer.I consider it absolutely incorrect to
    describe Herriot’s reception in Moscow and the France-Russian
    negotiations as a change, even a slight one, in Soviet Russia’s policy
    in general, or as being anti-British in particular.[1]We certainly value very highly
    both Herriot’s reception in Moscow and the step taken towards a
    rapprochement with France or towards negotiations with her, which have now
    become possible, probable and, I should like to believe, essential. Any
    rapprochement with France is something we very much desire, especially in
    view of the fact that Russia’s commercial interests imperatively
    demand closer relations with this strong continental power. But we are
    convinced that this rapprochement does not in the least imply that some
    change must necessarily take place in our policy towards Britain. We believe
    fully friendly relations with both powers to be quite possible, and that is
    our aim. We believe that the development of commercial relations will
    inevitably go a verylongway towards achieving this aim. We
    believe that the interests of Britain and France, rightly understood, will
    likewise operate in that direction. We believe that the mutual interests of
    both Britain and France. insofar as they have points of contact with Russia,
    do not under any circumstances contain elements of inevitable hostility
    between Britain and France. On the contrary, we even think that peaceful and
    friendly relations between these powers and Russia are a guarantee (I am
    almost prepared to say—the strongest guarantee) that peace and
    friendship between Britain and France will last a long time, and that all
    possible, and under present circumstances probable, differences between
    France and Britain will most speedily and truly find a happy solution.

2. Question. Isnot the virtual termination of the
    Greco-Turkish War, a war supportedbyBritain, an opportune
    nionieiit for the conclusion of an Anglo-Russian agreement?

Answer.Of course, the termination of the
    Greco-Turkish War, which had Britain’s support, is a factor that, to a
    certain extent, improves the chances of an Anglo-Russian agreement being
    concluded. We looked for such an agreement even before that war ended and
    shall now continue to seek it with the utmost energy. True, some of the
    problems connected with the termination of that war are objects of our
    disagreement with Britain. But, first of all, the peace which has followed
    the Greco-Turkish War is in our opinion such an advantage to international
    politics as a whole that we hope for an improvement in the general
    conditions under which they are conducted, thanks to the Greco-Turkish
    peace. Secondly, we do not consider the differences between Britain and
    ourselves to be in any way insurmountable. On the contrary, we expect that,
    with the Middle East problem entering various stages, the near future will
    show us to what extent we are right in hoping that the end of the
    Greco-Turkish War will also be the end of the conflicts and differences
    which placed that war in the forefront of international politics. We are
    doing everything in our power to make the end of that war also the end of
    all friction and disagreement with Britain, and we hope that the interests
    of the British Government will rise on this occasion, too, above any
    promptings and the frequently insincere utterances of the anti-Russian
    press.

3. Question. Doyou consider Russia’s
    participation in the eastern question a matter of prestige alone, or do you
    proceed exclusively from Russia’s real interests? Does the Russian
    ’Government agree to the French proposal to permit Russia’s
    participation in only that part of the Conference that will decide the
    question of the Straits?

Answer. Iconsider Russia’s participation in
    the settlement of the Middle East question[2]to have nothing to do with
    prestige. I hope that our international politics as a whole over a period of
    five years have shown completely that we are quite indifferent to questions
    of prestige and that we are incapable of putting forward any demand
    whatsoever or of worsening the real chances of peace between states solely
    on account of prestige. I am confident that in no other country are the
    masses so indifferent to prestige and even so prepared to treat the question
    of prestige as such with happy ridicule. We are of the opinion that modern
    diplomacy will rapidly come to regard questions of prestige precisely in
    this way.

Our Middle East policy is a matter of Russia’s most
    real, immediate and vital interest and of the interest of a number of states
    federated with her. If all these states did not succeed in getting their
    demand to participate in the Middle East Conference satisfied, there would
    remain a huge mass of elements of hostility, conflict and discontent; their
    non-participation would involve such difficulties in purely commercial
    affairs between Eastern Europe on the one hand, and all other states on the
    other, that either there would remain no grounds whatever for peaceful
    coexistence or that such existence would be extraordinarily difficult.

The Russian Government, therefore, is not satisfied with the
    proposal from Paris to allow Russia to participate only in that part of the
    Conference which will settle the problem of the Straits. We are of the
    opinion that such a limitation would inevitably lead to a number of very
    practical, immediate inconveniences, in particular economic inconveniences,
    from which France and Britain would themselves suffer, most probably in the
    near future.

4. Question.What is the Russian programme for the
    solution of the Straits problem?

Answer.Our Straits programme (still only
    approximate, of course) contains, among other things, the following:

First, the satisfaction of Turkey’s national
    aspirations.
 
      We consider this essential, and not only in the interests of national
      independence. Our five years’ experience in settling the national
      question in a country. that contains a tremendous number of nationalities
      such as could hardly be found in any other country, gives us the full
      conviction that under such circumstances the only correct attitude to the
      interests of nations is to meet those interests in full and provide
      conditions that exclude any possibility of conflicts on that score. Our
      experience has left us with the firm conviction that only exclusive
      attention to the interests of various nations can remove grounds for
      conflicts, can remove mutual mistrust, can remove the fear of any
      intrigues and create that confidence, especially on the part of workers
      and peasants speaking different languages, without which there absolutely
      cannot be peaceful relations between peoples or anything like a successful
      development of everything that is of value in present day
      civilisation.

Secondly, our programme includes the closing of the Straits
    to all warships in times of peace and of war. This is in the direct
    commercial interests of all powers, not only of those whose territory is in
    the immediate vicinity of the Straits, but of all others, too. It must be
    remembered that all over the world there has been an inordinate amount of
    pacifist talk, an unusual number of pacifist phrases and assurances, and
    even vows against war and against peace,[The Versailles
    Peace Treaty]although there is usually little preparedness on the
    part of the majority of states, especially on the part of the modern
    civilised states, to take any realistic steps, even the most simple, to
    ensure peace. On this, and on similar questions, we should like to see a
    minimum of general assurances, solemn promises and grandiloquent formulas,
    and the greatest possible number of the simplest and most obvious decisions
    and measures that would certainly lead to peace, if not to the complete
    elimination of the war danger.

Thirdly, our programme on the Straits includes complete
    freedom of commerce by sea. After what I have said above I do not think it
    at all necessary to explain this point or make it more concrete.

5. Question. Would the Russian Government agree to the League
    of Nations controlling the Straits if the League were to include in

      its composition Russia, Turkey, Germany and the United States?

Or would Russia insist on the establishment of a special
    commission to control the Straits?

Answer.We are, of course, opposed to the League of
    Nations, and I do not think that it is only our economic and political
    system with its specific features that accounts for our negative attitude
    towards the League; the interests of peace, regarded from the point of view
    of the concrete conditions of modern international politics in. general,
    also fully justify that negative attitude. The League of Nations hears so
    many marks of its world war origin, it is so intimately hound up with the
    Versailles Treaty and is so marked by the absence of anything resembling the
    establishment of the, real equality of rights between nations, anything
    resembling a real chance of their peaceful coexistence, that I think our
    negative attitude to the League can he appreciated and does not stand
    in need of further comment.

6. Question. Does the refusal to ratify the agreement with
    Urquhart mean a victory of the “Left Communists” ? What are the
    objective conditions which would make possible a resumption of negotiations
    and the ratification of the agreement with Urquhart?

Answer.The question of concluding an agreement with
    Urquhart124 was raised by our government when I was ill and was unable to
    take part in affairs of state. Therefore I am not yet fully informed of all
    the details of this matter. Nevertheless I can assert quite definitely that
    there is not, nor can there now he, any question of a victory for the Left
    Communists. I know this from my direct observation of the course of
    government affairs.

The fact of the matter is that Britain’s act of
    injustice, expressed in her unwillingness to admit us to the Conference, was
    so unexpected, aroused such indignation in Russia and so firmly united not
    only the Right with the Left Communists but also united the huge mass of the
    non-Party population of Russia, the workers and peasants, that things did
    not and could not reach the point of disagreement between the Left and Right
    Communists.

The reason given for our rejection of the Urquhart agreement

      was a direct expression, one may say, not only of the general Party
      sentiment but of that of the entire people, i.e., the sentiment of the
      entire mass of the workers and peasants.

The resumption of negotiations and the subsequent
    ratification of an agreement with Urquhart depend primarily on the
    elimination of the flagrant injustices committed against Russia by Britain
    in curtailing her right to participate in the Middle East Conference. As far
    as the concrete terms submitted to us by Urquhart are concerned, I have not
    yet had time to look into this matter in sufficient detail, and can only say
    that the government has decided to let the supporters and opponents of this
    agreement have their say in our press as soon as possible, in order to
    obtain, from the most objective and motivated discussion, material for the
    overall verification of all the pros and cons and for a decision on the
    issue in a manner that best accords with Russia’s interests.

7. Question. To what extent are the accusations of the anti
    Russian press in Britain justified when they assert that the recent arrests
    of industrialists in Moscow signify the end of the New Economic Policy and a
    reversion to the policy of nationalisation and confiscation?

Answer. Asto your question concerning the
    accusations made against us in the British anti-Russian press that
    “Moscow industrialists” were being arrested, I must say that I
    have today just read in our newspaper(Izvestia)an item headed
    “Arrests of Black Marketeers” . None other than Comrade
    Z. B. Katsnelson, chief of the Economic Division of the State Political
    Administration, tells us in this article that there was no question of
    arrests of industrialists, and that “rumours circulated by enemies of
    Soviet power, both within the R.S.F.S.R. and abroad, that the arrests are
    infringements on the freedom to trade are actually nothing butnonsensicalinventions that have the definite counter-revolutionary
    intent of disrupting the economic relations that are being established with
    Western Europe” .

Indeed, those arrested were exclusively profiteers on the
    so-called black market and our authorities are in possession of evidence
    establishing connection between these black-market currency profiteers and,
    certain employees of foreign missions in Moscow. This evidence shows not
    only the sale of platinum and of gold bars but also the organisationthe
    contraband shipments of these valuables abroad.

From this you can see how absolutely unfounded are the
    rumours that we are putting an end to the New Economic Policy and how
    utterly false are the accusations made by the anti-Russian press in Britain,
    which is trying by the most unheard of distortion and deception to present
    our policy in a false light. Actually, there has never been any mention in
    any government circles whatsoever of discontinuing the New Economic Policy
    and returning to the old. Incidentally, the whole work of the government
    during the session of the All-Russia Central Executive Committee now in
    progress is aimed at obtaining the widest possible legislative sanction for
    what is known as the New Economic Policy, so as to eliminate all possibility
    of any deviation from it.

October 27, 1922

[1]Edouard
    Herriot, leader of the Radical Socialist Party, member of Parliament and
    Mayor of Lyons, visited Russia unofficially on September 20-October 10,
    1922. He toured the country with the aim of elucidating economic and
    political possibilities for estab-lishing relations between France and the
    R.S.F.S.R.

[2]The
    Lausanne Conference, which took place on November 20, 1922-July 24,
    1923.